Augmented / Virtual Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have been around for decades, but since the recent introduction of more affordable and high-quality devices they’re starting to change the way we shop, learn and work.

Much of the media attention has been around entertainment and gaming (Pokémon GO, anyone?), but these emerging technologies have disruptive potential across industries.

Elevator Pitch

Augmented reality and virtual reality are technologies blurring the line between the real and the virtual.

Virtual Reality (VR) enables you to fully immerse yourself in a computer-simulated reality. Using a headset you can experience being in an environment different from the real world, such as to travel through space. Augmented Reality (AR) on the other hand adds a virtual layer to the real world. Other than Pokémon GO, think of your favorite Instagram puppy ears filter.

AR is likely to be far larger of a field than VR as it will allow us to be in the present while having virtual information added to the experience in real-time.

Mixed Reality (MR) is an experience blending the physical and digital reality, hereby allowing you to interact with and manipulate projected objects as if they were real.

Image via UX Planet

These immersive technologies are expected to eventually replace your smartphone and other computer devices.

🤯 Some (including Elon Musk) argue we are all living in a computer simulation.

Key Benefits

Deliver rich experiences

Both technologies can be seen as new communication platforms allowing users to engage in more creative, immersive and personalized experiences. AR and VR help the impossible to become reality and are a move from storytelling to ‘story-doing’.

Increase reach

Companies can expose their brand or product to a wider audience as physical constraints of distance or geography are eliminated.

Improve efficiency

One of the most widely adopted use cases of digital reality is for training purposes and as a real-time collaboration tool for cross-country teams and remote workers. Just imagine being able to ‘travel’ half way around the world to see what your friend or colleague is working on and experience it as if you were there together.

Virtual workspaces and the rise of distributed teams will play an important role in the future of work.

“Virtual reality is the ‘ultimate empathy machine.’ These experiences are more than documentaries. They’re opportunities to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.”
– Chris Milk

How AR & VR are disrupting industries

Augmented, virtual and mixed reality are changing the way people work and live. Let’s look at how their application could disrupt the day-to-day operations of the enterprise, and how some companies have already begun experimenting with these immersive technologies.

Media and Entertainment

The entertainment industry is where the first commercial augmented and virtual reality applications saw the light of day. Pokémon GO is undoubtedly the game that brought AR to a global audience. The app, launched in 2016, let players catch, battle and train popular Pokémon characters and reached over 800 million downloads. Its successor, the Harry Potter AR game, is however missing some of the same magic.

PlayStation, Nintendo and other game manufacturers have been heavily investing in creating more immersive play experiences. Thus far many of these games have been solitary, while adoption is destined to see rapid increase as soon as friends and family can be joining in. Shared experiences are the key to success. The VOID is one such great execution allowing you and your friends to explore a physical space while interacting with a dynamic, virtual world.

Live sports and music events can also be experienced remotely. Facebook debuted Oculus Venues putting you on the front row of concerts and getting you closer to the World Cup games than ever before. Or check out this video of a fire-breathing dragon flying around a baseball park.

Important: The disaster-inspired videos you’ve undoubtedly seen broadcasted by television networks such as The Weather Channel and CBS (such as this one of when they brought a tornado into the studio) are nothing more than fancy green screen and CGI. It’s not augmented nor mixed reality.

Retail

AR and VR are changing how we shop. Smart mirrors like Memory Mirror let you virtually try on dozens of outfits and change colors and patterns instantly. You can test any shade of lipstick and preview makeup looks and accessories using augmented reality apps. L’Oréal is one of the brands most actively investing in the space and has for example acquired popular AR beauty company ModiFace.

With virtual reality you can get front-row access to the hottest fashion shows on earth or step into the shoes of a stylist like Kate Young. Augmented catalogs bring products to life, unlock exclusive product information and allow you to ‘try before you buy’.

Whether extended reality will see widespread uptake in the physical store environment will however depend on the added value it can provide to customers without disrupting their shopping journey.

Real Estate

Virtual reality allows prospective buyers to visit a property from the comfort of their living room, thereby completely transforming the home buying experience. Just picture taking a virtual tour of your future apartment and personalizing it on the spot with your current furniture or the decoration of your dreams. Property listings that feature virtual tours have been shown to receive three to five times more leads.

Sotheby’s, one of the companies tapping into the trend, launched Curate, an augmented reality app letting consumers visualize a house as their own before purchase.

AR and VR enable realtors to reach a much greater audience with their listings and showcase properties still under development. This will not only save time for both agent and customer but could also facilitate foreign investment.

Manufacturing

Engineers will no longer need to build physical prototypes which will drastically reduce the time it takes to move from ideation to product delivery. Ford has for example partnered with Microsoft HoloLens to visualize full scale models in 3D.

Besides productivity efficiencies, AR and VR can enhance plant floor views and overlay context-relevant instructions and analytics. Imagine a factory worker walking through the plant seeing any machine-related information in real-time, and this hands-free. Machine inspection and maintenance will become a lot more efficient.

Healthcare

Virtual reality enables doctors to access patients in remote locations to quickly offer medical advice and can even help people with phobias overcome their fears through simulated experiences.

Hospitalized patients on the other hand can receive a more enjoyable experience as VR has proven a viable method for reducing stress and anxiety. Kids could for example travel in a simulated world which will distract from any pain or discomfort and reduce their need for medication.

Virtual reality is considered the ultimate empathy device. Projects like Stanford’s 1,000 Cut Journey let you step into the shoes of Michael Sterling, a black male, and encounter racism as a young child, an adolescent, and a young adult. Project Empathy is an entire collection of evocative and surprising experiences that help us see the world through the eyes of another. Definitely worth checking out!

Education

If a picture is worth 1,000 words…

Instead of reading a textbook, imagine literally walking between dinosaurs or witnessing first-hand Napoleon’s coup in the French Revolution. Microsoft HoloTour and Google Expeditions for example allow viewers to virtually explore an art gallery or museum, visit Machu Picchu, or navigate outer space, all without leaving the classroom. Froggipedia was developed using Apple ARKit and lets students view and dissect a virtual frog’s anatomy.

AR and VR allow students and trainees to delve more deeply in a subject matter and experience theories in an interactive learning environment with immersive content they might actually enjoy. All this will only aid information retention.

Augmented, virtual and mixed reality are still in an early stage and their hardware and capabilities are continuously evolving. With costs coming down, companies should think of how they could leverage these technologies to create experiences that deliver meaningful impact.

Artificial intelligence plays a fundamental role in bringing these immersive experiences to life. Deep learning algorithms and machine vision are for example necessary building blocks for the real-time recognition of objects and the processing of large volumes of data captured from the outside world. That puppy ears filter in Instagram would similarly not be possible without advanced facial recognition.

Virtual environments are also being used as playgrounds to train robots and self-driving cars. Waymo’s fleet of 25,000 vehicles have for example driven over 5 billion miles in such simulated environments.

Glossary

Mixed Reality (MR)The real-world environment is overlaid with virtual content which can interact with objects in the real-world.

Extended Reality (XR)Umbrella term for Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality.

Eye trackingA process of measuring the position and movement of eyes. It’s a key element for creating a more immersive and intuitive experience.

6DoFSix Degrees of Freedom is what makes Virtual Reality so immersive. It allows the user to have full rotational movement around a fixed point (i.e. look around, move forward and backward), hence everything behaves as in the real world.

HMDHead-Mounted Display. A display device worn on the head or as part of a helmet.

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Developing an AR/VR helmet to improve efficiencies in the welding industry. The device mixes real and simulated welding using high dynamic range cameras to enhance accuracy while collecting data which will allow robots to better perform welding tasks in the future.

Social networks have also started open sourcing its toolkits. Facebook, for example, launched Spark AR allowing users to create their own augmented reality effects, while last year Snapchat had opened access to its Lens Studio and created the Lens Explorer to make it easier to find user-made AR lenses.